


Whirlwind

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Juris Imprudence [33]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M, lawyer AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 22:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8178151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, Any,My thoughts tear me,I dread their fever.I am scattered in its whirl."Bucky takes Evan home and makes sure he's okay.





	

Evan’s hands were shaking so bad he couldn’t turn the key in the ignition. Three strikes and he was out, because after the third try, Bucky rolled his eyes, hauled Evan out of his car, snatched his keys, locked it, and then dragged Evan over to his car, where he shoved Evan into the passenger seat, climbed into the driver’s seat, and said, “Directions?”  
  
So Evan gave Bucky directions to his apartment. The ride was a blur, Evan’s mind spinning. He’d totally lost it, not just in front of Sheppard, but in front of Weir and the whole damn office and it was that teenager, Nathan, who thought to send him home. Nathan, who was always underfoot and always asking questions and acting like Evan’s shadow and -  
  
“This it?”  
  
Evan blinked, came back to the present. Bucky was parked outside Evan’s house. “Yeah, this is it.”  
  
“Nice place.” Bucky killed the engine and climbed out of the car, and he headed for the front door. He still had Evan’s keys, so he had the front door unlocked before Evan thought to unbuckle his seatbelt and go after him.  
  
Bucky looked at the shoes lined up in the foyer and kicked his off, nudged them into a neat pair beneath the entry table with the rest of the shoes, and then he proceeded to clear Evan’s house. Not of enemies, but of, well, anything that could be used to contact the office. Evan’s phone. Evan’s laptop. Evan’s pager (he still had that thing?), a walkie-talkie, and finally, Evan’s cell phone.  
  
“Go get changed,” Bucky said, propelling Evan in the direction of the bedroom, and Evan had no choice but to obey. Which was ironic, because Bucky was a sergeant and before separation Evan had made major (and why he’d taken a job as a paralegal was beyond his family, given what he’d gotten his degree in, but O’Neill had taken one look at him, bruised and scarred from that kidnapping incident, and given him a place where he could do and achieve and didn’t have to think).  
  
When Evan emerged from his bedroom in jeans and an old faded USAF t-shirt, Bucky was in the kitchen making tea. For two.  
  
“Thanks,” Evan said, “but you don’t have to -”  
  
“Weir ordered me to stay, and I’m staying.”  
  
“Really,” Evan protested. “I can -”  
  
Bucky fixed him with a look. “If I go, I take everything with me. If I stay, you can access your phone and your email for emergencies.”  
  
Evan stared at him. “You’re serious.”  
  
“Yes.” Bucky poured two cups of tea, handed one to Evan.  
  
When Evan took a sip, it was just the way he liked it, which was strange, because he almost never drank tea at the office.  
  
Bucky was smirking ever so faintly when he said, “You’re not the only one who’s observant.”  
  
Evan sipped his tea slowly, and the warmth flooding his limbs helped him relax a little bit, let the tension in his shoulders and neck ease. “Thanks, Bucky. I really appreciate it. But you don’t have to stay. I can obey orders as well as the next man.”  
  
“You stayed with me in the kitchen when I needed you,” Bucky said. “I owe you.”  
  
Evan sighed, shook his head. “No, that’s not the kind of thing you owe anyone for. I didn’t do it so I’d have one over on you.”  
  
“I know,” Bucky said, “but if I can pay you back, I will.”  
  
“By, what, watching me sit on the couch and stare at the TV or draw or -?”  
  
“Or whatever you need me for.”  
  
Evan drank some more tea. “I promise I’m fine, now. I just needed to walk away. I don’t need -”  
  
“My thoughts - they tear at me, sometimes. I do mindless things like filing that are better left to the secretaries who have two hands so I don’t have to think,” Bucky said quietly, startling Evan into silence. “They burn at me, like a fever, and I dread the moments when everything around me is still, because then I have time to think, to remember. I feel - scattered. In the whirlwind.”  
  
Evan bit his lip. He couldn’t imagine what that confession had cost Bucky. “Bucky, I -”  
  
“I’ve seen it in your eyes. You feel it still. Not every day, like me. But on days like today.” Bucky tilted his head, searched Evan’s face. “What is today?”

“Today?” Evan closed his eyes, remembered the way the date had flashed up on his screen when the discovery emails came through. “Today is the anniversary of - it’s the day I was released. When I was rescued. When I got to go home. Today is the day it was _over_.”  
  
“When it ends,” Bucky said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper, “when everything goes back to normal, that’s how you know it was _real_. Because you have everything else to compare it to.”  
  
Evan reached out, curled his hand over Bucky’s. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Bucky clutched his hand softly. “I’m sorry, too.”  
  
Evan laughed wetly, realized there were tears brimming in his eyes, scrubbed them away with one hand. He took another swallow of tea to wash down the lump in his throat. “We’re both pretty sad, huh?”  
  
“We’re sad together, at least,” Bucky said, and he leaned in and kissed Evan.  
  
Evan kissed him back, and for just a moment, the whirlwind stilled.


End file.
